Raw sewage – a gold mine for Virology

23Oct

A gold mine for virology, as the results of recent studies, they contain thousands of previously unknown viruses. Microbiologists at the University of Pittsburgh, Washington University in St. Louis and University of Barcelona,looking for new places and ways to open a previously unknown viruses. Approximately 3000 different viruses so far been described, but scientists argue that it is only a small part of the species that exist in our world. In the hunt for new specimens they examined samples of waste water in Africa, Europe and North America.They used a deep systematic methods for the study of viruses with different types of nucleic acids – the single-stranded DNA, double-stranded DNA, RNA, and double-stranded RNA. This method was used before metagenomiki for studying bacteria and viruses, but not with the raw sewage sample.
Researchers found the virus, including human papilloma virus, norovirus, and many viruses of plants and animals. They also found bacteriophages. In general, we found 234 known viruses that relate to 26 different families. From the results suggests the conclusion that raw sewage most abundant supply of viruses ever found. But a huge number of genetic sequences were only slight similarity to known viruses, the researchers explained. Most of them could even be placed in certain taxa. “These results show that the vast majority of viruses on Earth is not described,” the authors write. Disclosure of new viruses will help microbiologists to understand how viruses evolve and emerge. Apparently raw sewage – a great place to observe them.